Inconsistent order of names when applying for a passport

slb2020

I write this on behalf of someone who was born in Africa but has worked for the NHS for about 20 years, with a series of visas/work permits and now holds dual citizenship. Like many Africans, she has two Christian names, an English one and an African one. In Africa she uses the African name as her first name and the English name as her middle name, in the UK, she switches the order.

Consequently, her African documents, including her passport, specify the African name as her first name. By contrast, in all her UK visa applications and in her subsequent application for UK citizenship she put the English name first. This discrepancy was not questioned or objected to by the officials issuing these documents.

However, in a recent application to renew her UK passport, she was asked to provide a copy of any other valid passport. The passport office staff have finally noted the discrepancy and refused to renew her UK passport because of it.

Our questions are:
1. Are the UK officials correct in refusing to renew the passport?
2. Is there a reasonably quick and preferably not too expensive way to resolve  this and renew the UK passport? For example, if she asked the UK passport office to invalidate her African passport on the basis that she will officially change her name and apply for a new African passport on her next visit to Africa, would that suffice?

DullGreyGuy

slb2020 said:

I write this on behalf of someone who was born in Africa but has worked for the NHS for about 20 years, with a series of visas/work permits and now holds dual citizenship. Like many Africans, she has two Christian names, an English one and an African one. In Africa she uses the African name as her first name and the English name as her middle name, in the UK, she switches the order.

Consequently, her African documents, including her passport, specify the African name as her first name. By contrast, in all her UK visa applications and in her subsequent application for UK citizenship she put the English name first. This discrepancy was not questioned or objected to by the officials issuing these documents.

However, in a recent application to renew her UK passport, she was asked to provide a copy of any other valid passport. The passport office staff have finally noted the discrepancy and refused to renew her UK passport because of it.

Our questions are:
1. Are the UK officials correct in refusing to renew the passport?
2. Is there a reasonably quick and preferably not too expensive way to resolve  this and renew the UK passport? For example, if she asked the UK passport office to invalidate her African passport on the basis that she will officially change her name and apply for a new African passport on her next visit to Africa, would that suffice?

Have been through something similar but to do with how names change in marriage... here you choose, back home you drop your maternal surname and add "of" and your husband's paternal surname. The only way you can do it differently is via a court order which is generally only done for those under dire threat or who give the judge a brown envelope with enough green notes in it. 

You have no right to a passport, you need to either harmonise the names or convince the HM Passport Office that to do so is unreasonably difficult, in which case they will issue the passport in the UK name and note in the observations that you have a passport in a different name too. 

The UK passport office cannot invalidate a foreign passport. They either need to change their UK name to match their overseas passport, change their overseas passport to match their UK name or convince the HMPO that to do so is unreasonably difficult. 

We were fortunate, according to HMPO's system changing name back home is easy; we managed to convince the caseworker that this is not true, it would involve bribing a foreign judiciary and even then it would be a circa 12-18 month process which would have to be conducted there. 

smudge56

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents-accessible
All passports should be in the same name unless there is a naming convention,  names on the foreign passport cannot be changed or it would be unreasonable for HMPO to ask you to travel back to the country to change the name on the passport.  https://www.gov.uk/search/all?keywords=Knowledge+base  This is the information that HMPO uses.  If you have to return to the country of origin, write a letter stating why it would be inconvenient to do so. This should be accepted and an observation will be added to the British passport showing the name in the foreign passport.